Ion cooler take 2

[Jared] sent in inventgeek.com’s ion cooler 2.0. This time the ion cooler is pushing air out of the case to avoid charged air crossing the sensitive components. They kept the cost down and used easily acquired components.

I put this togeather tonight using a neon sign transformer that i have thats very simular to the transformer they recommended other than its 120V AC so i have to plug it in. IT WORKED! its not as good a 2 fans ( one in front and one in back) but its as good as one case fan for sure! and it only took about 45 min to build no less.

I set about testing this as well. what i found is there is a balance between the distance between the electrodes and the power output of the transformer. once i got them far enough apart it worked well and i didnât have a 4th of july display in my face. this definitely works, but bench test this before you mount it to the case!

i dont think that matters. obviously its not the same system as the big ion cooling system he has on there as well. its probably some other system he has that he used to bolt it on to. the point is the cooling system works. i wonder if the larger blades like in a air cleaner would work better though.

1) They’re using a 20kv power supply, which is *way* too high. There is a *reason* why air ionizers never operate at that high a voltage – OZONE! Using a lower voltage will result in less airflow, but that can be compensated to a degree by using more emitter/collector wires, and finer emitter wires.

2) They didn’t mention another important detail – the negative output from the supply should always go to the finer emitter wires. This should not be reversed, otherwise you’d be spraying positive ions in the room, which is most likely a *bad thing*. Look up “FÃ¶hn wind” on Wikipedia, and then understand that one of the leading hypothesis for the resultant “illness ranging from migraines to psychosis…suicide and accidents increased by 10 percent” is the presence of unusually high levels of positive ions. There is further scientific evidence on the bad effects of positive ions, and the healthful effects of negative ions, as well. Whether it’s true or not, the fact remains that you will *never* see a commercial air ionizer wired to emit positive ions into the environment. Why push your luck?

3) Whatever the output air from this device blows near *will* collect dust. Very fine dust which is extremely hard to remove – sometimes impossible depending on the surface. I’ve seen wallpaper and some plastics permanently stained by ionizers, or other ion emitters such as TVs. Just a little tip before you ruin something you’d rather not.

Now that’s out of the way, I gotta say I’m disappointed. Yes, this project is pretty neat, and I do tip my hat to the creators. It’s just that this *not* an “ion cooler”, it’s an “ion fan”. And every time I see “ion cooler”, I get my hopes up that it’s the real thing. Let me explain:

With a standard heatsink/fan, most of the air takes the path of least resistance, flowing past the metal without coming into physical contact. In addition, the air particles closest to the metal tend to form a slow-moving, high-pressure boundary layer that pushes air flow away from the metal, effectively acting as an insulator.

But if you emit a stream of charged air particles at a metal object (such as a heatsink) that’s grounded or has an opposite charge, each of those air particles is attracted into physical, intimate contact with the metal in order to give up its charge.

The result is incredible thermal transfer with a fraction of the airflow. I’ve seen this effect demonstrated. A grounded piece of metal was heated red-hot with a torch. When a nearby ion emitter was switched on, the metal cooled rapidly, even though the air movement was barely noticeable.

So picture an “ion cooler” on the CPU, and an “ion fan” replacing the power supply and/or case fans. Voila, silent and effective cooling. Ok, high voltage isn’t exactly CPU-friendly – but neither is water, and people use that anyway. I’m sure it could be done with some care and ingenuity.

#3: A neon transformer puts out too much current and is *DANGEROUS* – capable of causing bodily harm or setting things aflame. Your transformer likely puts out 5-20 milliamps. The power supply they use puts out 50 *MICROamps*, max. Please replace the transformer at earliest opportunity!

so how exactly does the cold air cool the computer? doesn’t the ionizer cool the air? but they said the ionized air is not blown into the computer because it damages wires.

could the cool air be electrically neutralized by being blown through a metal screen connected to an earth ground? i have some fine aluminium screen so fine it looks semi-solid from a few feet away, if i connected it to an earth ground and situated it so the ionized air would move through it would that not solve the problem?

Yes, you too can fail elementary English and still make a kick-ass PC mod! Could you increase air flow by repeating the basic anode/cathode module and stacking them vertically? And, could you do this without requiring an additional power supply?